from Peter Baines
The Scarborough Labour Party has become widely known as one of the most undemocratic and reactionary bodies in the country. It has been des~ cribgd on T.V. as being “vastly totalitarian". Applications for membership aré rejected arbitrarily and the business of the branch is conducted in conditigns of absolute secrecy. Executive Committee members have even been known to refer to left-wingers as "socialist scum". The party holds three council seats but the Labour alderman and two councillors are consistent only on one count, that of slavish support for the Tory majority against athe Liberal opposition. Between 1962 and 1965 two Labour mayors have presided over the council. This has meant that they have taken no part in local politics but have teen content to lead a Tory controlled council! This state of affairs has savoured so much of Brobdingnag that conservative and liberal councillors could scarcely contain their amusement at the last mayor making. The Labour mayors have so obviously delighted in their chains and robes that vaguely indecent ditties have been composed and sung in certain of the town's bars and clubs.
The most outrageous example of political "backsliding" surely occurred when a discussion developed in the council chamber on the subject of allow~ ing a company to establish itself in Scarborough. Alderman W.H. Smith (Labour Mayor 1962-64) actually said, "We must not judge this issue on whether the proposal would result in all the year round jobs for one hun-~ dred and twenty men. We must judge it on whether it is good or bad planning”. This statement epitomises the political position of the Labour Party in Scarborough. Unemployment during the long winter months is endemic, and yet a Lebour alderman talks breezily about “good" or "bad" planning.
Immediately before the municipal elections the Scarborough Labour and Trade Union Federation and the Young Socialists decided after earnest con~ sultations that they could not support the "Labour" candidates. It was also decided reluctantly by the two organisations that they must ask the electorate to abstain from voting. This was done by inserting an advertisement in the local newspaper and by circulating a pamphlet in the Central Ward. Shortly after the election members of the Scarborough Young Socialists the Scarborough Labour and Trade Union Federation and the Scarborough New Left Club were subjected to intense police questioning on the pretext that the Representation of the People Act had been contravened in respect of election expenses. It is perhaps significant that the police began their enquiries within the statutoryperiod for making returns of expenditure! Tne police acted as a result of receiving a complaint from the Labour Party and have eagerly made use of an opportunity to pry into the affairs of the town's three socialist organisations.
The position in Scarborough is desperate. Politically the branch exists in name only, a fanatical left witchunter. No support is being given to the adjacent marginal constituency of Cleveland. Transport House refuses to set up a committee of enquiry and Miss Sarah Barker, grossly understating, finds the position in Scarborough "rather disturbing". Why this hesitation? Can it be that an investigation into the activities of the Scarborough Labour Party would produce evidence whose disclosure might damage the party at nate ional level? Socialism is not, and never has been, characterised by pusillemimity and vacillation. If Transport House does not act immegiately, all sections of the party can only conclude that the bureaucracy is lacking in courage, resolution and honesty of purpose.